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IV. — Memoir of the late Mr. John Just, of Bury. 

 By Mr. Jno. Harland. 



[Read January Wth, 1853.] 



When honoured by an intimation on the part of this Society, 

 of its desire to have some memoir of its late corresponding 

 member, Mr. John Just, a ready compliance with the wish 

 that I should prepare a brief sketch of his life and character, 

 was given — from no confidence of being able to do him justice ; 

 but rather from the feeling that I had no right to decline the 

 sacred duty of offering a tribute, however feeble and inade- 

 quate, to the memory of my departed friend. 



Before commencing the brief and impei'fect sketch thus 

 undertaken, permit me to observe that it is of necessity 

 limited to what may be called the external biography, the 

 outer life, of the man. Apart from autobiography, a man's 

 own portrait of himself, — all biography which professes to 

 be internal, seems to me to be not a little presumptuous. 

 For one man to attempt to represent the life's thoughts and 

 feelings of another, to depict all those countless attributes that 

 make up the personal character, the deep inner being, of a 

 human individuality, — this implies indeed a rashness so great, 

 that the most gifted may naturally shrink from attempting 

 the task. To say nothing of the differing powers, the various 

 capacities of men; even to overlook the peculiar incapacity 

 of some minds for rightly comprehending a man with whom 

 they may be in daily and intimate intercourse ; — we cannot 

 forget that there must lie hidden in every human being, many 



